Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Kingsman’ Topples a Killer Clown

It feels like we’ve been watching the same six or seven movies shift places on the charts for weeks now, which makes what happened this weekend such a breath of fresh air. With four new releases all cracking the list, we’ve at least got a little bit of variety in the films we’ll be discussing, and no The Emoji Movie anywhere near the list. I’ll put that down as a win in my book any day of the week. Here’s the estimated box office grosses as of Sunday afternoon:

Film

Weekend

Per Screen

1

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

$39,000,000

$9,743

$39,000,000

2

It

$30,000,000 (-50%)

$7,487

$266,338,881

3

The LEGO Ninjago Movie

$21,245,000

$5,250

$21,245,000

4

American Assassin

$6,250,000 (-57%)

$1,982

$26,180,459

5

Home Again

$3,311,821 (36%)

$1,233

$22,347,652

6

mother!

$3,260,000 (-56%)

$1,377

$13,429,018

7

Friend Request

$2,400,000

$933

$2,400,000

8

The Hitman’s Bodyguard

$1,850,000 (-48%)

$908

$73,597,979

9

Stronger

$1,747,910

$3,045

$1,747,910

10

Wind River

$1,265,285 (-50%)

$884

$31,653,034

First among the new releases is Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which grossed $39 million atop this week’s list. While that ostensibly passes the first film’s opening weekend at the box office, there are some discrepancies worth pointing out. There’s the fact that the Kingsmansequel opened in nearly 800 more theaters, bringing its per-theater gross down from $11,300 to $9,743 for the second film. That’s still solidly within predictions for the film; earlier this week, Variety had Kingsman: The Golden Circle down for about $40 million, so if it missed its target, it only missed it by a little. As always, keep an eye out on the international numbers to see how well the film will really perform: the original Kingsman made two-thirds its gross in territories other than North America, and Kingsman: The Golden Circle is already up to $61 million in other parts of the world.

In third place this week with $21 million is The LEGO Ninjago Movie, the third installment in the LEGO cinematic universe. This represents a pretty big comedown from the openings of The LEGO Movieand The LEGO Batman Movie, which grossed $69 and $53 million respectively over their first weekends. Those same Variety projections had the film ending up somewhere in the $30 million range, so it would seem that the studios effectively missed the mark with this movie. Perhaps it’s the middling reviews; perhaps it’s the diminishing returns of a gimmicky franchise that didn’t have a lot of room for error to begin with. Either way, it would seem that the LEGO hype burned out faster than we might’ve expected.

In seventh place this weekend with $2.4 million is Friend Request, the long-delayed horror film that combines social media and, uh, witches. Friend Request first started popping up in European countries back in early 2016; for example, the film had its UK premiere all the way back in April of last year. Add to this the fact that Friend Request isn’t exactly moderately priced for a non-hyped horror release — the movie cost just shy of $10 million dollars, compared to the mere $1 million dollars budgeted for the similarly themed Unfriended— and this isn’t quite the horror phenomenon I’m sure producers were looking for. They can’t all be Paranormal Activity, I suppose.

Finally, in ninth place this weekend — and opening in only 500+ theaters — is Stronger, the Boston Marathon drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal. With $1.7 million in the bank, Stronger actually finished in the Top 5 this weekend on a per-theater basis, and Roadside Attractions is certainly hoping that this trend will continue as the movie expands. The film’s strong reviews certainly won’t hurt its cause; Stronger is currently sitting at 95% on RottenTomatoes, likely opening the door to some Oscar buzz for Gyllenhaal along the way.

That does it for the new releases, so let’s quickly jump around and pick up the repeat offenders. In second place this weekend with $30 million is It, which has now passed The Exorcistto become the highest-grossing horror film of all time. Granted, that comes with a series of caveats about genre designations and adjusted lifetime grosses, but hey, why rain on Pennywise’s parade? In fourth place with $6.2 million is American Assassin, which has now grossed $32.2 million worldwide. It will be interesting to see if the numbers inspire LionsGate to make a sequel for the film; Vince Flynn has written fifteen separate novels featuring Dylan O’Brien’s titular character, so there’s plenty of opportunities to build upon this universe if they so choose.

In fifth place this weekend is Home Again, which continues to hold its own against some pretty fierce competition en route to $3.3 million in its third weekend. Home Again has now earned $22.2 million against a budget of only $12 million; it’s also another solid success for star Reese Witherspoon. In sixth place this weekend — and maybe angling for a little different tone — is mother!, which fell about 56% in its second weekend to end up at $3.2 million. There’s not a lot to say about mother! that hasn’t been said a dozen times before at this site — the negative reviews, the ambitious marketing, the dreaded CinemaScore — so we’ll just say that Darren Aronofsky’s latest film has not quite lived up to expectations and leave it at that. It’s still solidly lapping A Cure for Wellnessin theaters, as much as it pains me to write that.

In eighth place this weekend is The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which looks set to bow from the Top 10 in the next week having made already made $73 million. This weekend’s $1.8 million gross comes with the movie’s first big drop in theaters — nearly a thousand fewer than last weekend — meaning that it’s days are certainly numbered, but nobody can say that The Hitman’s Bodyguard didn’t take advantage of a weak playing field. And finally, in tenth place this weekend is Wind River, which will likely now pivot into award season-mode as it hopes to garner Oscar nominations for Taylor Sheridan and its cast. Wind River’s $1.2 million pushes it up above $31 million at the domestic box office, a pretty impressive showing for a film that just kept growing.